The Rose of Fistlandus
by Monk Preston
Summary: Link is searching for a dear friend, training his technique in the process. However, in the land of Fistlandus strange events begin to happen. Time is reversed, and events change. What will become of Link, and will Fistlandus ever return to normal? PostMM
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Beginnings Split

Waking up to loud applause, Khaman was quite confused. He usually did not wake up and find people cheering, especially for him. He got off the ground and everything came rushing back to him. The crowd wasn't cheering for him, they were cheering for the small kid that had just bested him. He glanced at the kid, as if glancing at a demon, for that was surely what the kid was! No one could beat him in swordplay, and especially not some snot-nosed brat! He had even knocked him out, and no kid could do that! Not one!

Link took a bow to enormous applause. He had just defeated the greatest warrior in the city, and, surprisingly, the townspeople didn't mind. Link guessed that they had just enjoyed the show. It hadn't been all that hard, to be honest, he had just blocked Khaman's sword once, parried, and swiped at his feet. Unfortunately for Khaman, he jumped, landed on a rock, tripped, and fell, dropping his sword as he hit the ground. Reacting quickly, he had sprung to his feet and dodged Link's sword, running for his. Very unluckily, he had dived for it and overshot. Link had expected a blow and had rushed forward, trodding on Khaman. In a flurry of struggling limbs, Khaman (who was not having a good day) hit his head on the same rock, falling unconscious. Link had untangled himself from Khaman, to find the warrior unconscious on the ground. Bewildered, he turned to the crowd that had gathered and was now cheering. Guessing that he must be lucky, he went up to the commander, Regund, and asked, "Is there no one that I haven't beaten? Especially one not clumsy?"

Regund grunted in reply, obviously angry at the youngling. "Damn it if I don't fight you myself!" he said. "Damn kid thinks he has it all...." he muttered, just within earshot of Link.

Link frowned. He hated being insulted. He'd show this old guy who was boss.

They took their places on either side of the grass field. The crowd went deathly quiet. Here and there a man coughed, or muttered a bet to his friend. Link observed the surrounding area for anything that could give him a quick advantage. He saw some boulders to the left that he could climb on, hitting but not being hit. To his left, a low hanging branch on a tree. He could go under there, and not be followed. However, before he could see any other ways to bring the win his way, Regund yelled out, "No rules apply, but one: no killing your opponent."

Link nodded, understanding. Then he sprang forward, attacking. He slashed at Regund, side-stepped a blow, then, seeing Regund's rear unguarded, slashed at his back. Regund leaped forward, twisting in the air to slash at Link, who ducked, the blade hissing as it sped over Link's head. Link was near the boulder now, so he ran for it, rolling to pick up speed.

He reached the rocks, jumping onto the first one, and hopping up to the taller rock. Regund had caught up, and, seeing he couldn't reach Link, grabbed dirt of the ground and threw it in Link's face.

"That's cheating!" yelled Link.

"Ain't killed you, have I? Then I haven't broken no damn rules!" Regund retorted, scrabbling up the side of the rock while Link was recovering.

The crowd gathered around the rocks. Link blocked a blow to the chest, then jumped into the air, kicking Regund in the ribs.

Regund stumbled, and seeing his chance, Link swung his sword at the exposed neck. He halted an inch away, then stood there. Both Link and Regund panted, then Link offered a hand to pull Regund up. He took the hand, getting to his feet. The crowd broke into applause, but here and there were a few muttered curses and passing of coins.

Entering Regund's office, Link, Khaman, and Regund thanked the guards and closed the doors. Grabbing some beer and two mugs, Regund said, "What would you have to drink, Link? Unless in your city beer is allowed at a younger age."

"I'll have Lon Lon milk, if you have it," Link said.

Puzzled, the commander looked at Link. "Lon Lon milk?"

"Just water, thank you," Link said.

Khaman looked at Link with admiration now, not frustration. That was a brilliant fight!" he said.

Accepting his water from Regund, Link said, "Thanks, Khaman!"

"Never have I battled a swordsman of your skill!" said Regund. "You have no need of my training." He handed a mug of beer to Khaman, then drank from his own. "I must ask. Would you like to join the Army of Fistlandus? We'd be honored to have you."

Link looked as if he'd been asked this question before, and he gave the answer he gave to all the other askers, "Sorry, Commander, but I can't. I'm working on another task."

Regund, not giving up, responded, "Maybe we can assist you, and when you see how we fight, you'll change your mind!"

Link just shook his head. "Sorry, sir, but this trip is personal. Please, just let me stay here tonight."

"All right," Regund said, "but at least let me provide you with food for your journey."

"Thank you, sir!" Link said, grateful. He was walking for the door when something strange happened. He turned toward Regund, who should have been right behind him, but the commander was sitting at his desk, talking to Link, who was in a chair, drinking water. But Link had just finished that water, and was leaving the room!

"What's going on?" Link tried to say, but what came out was, "nah gneeog staw?" He was speaking backwards! Time was in reverse! In fact, the phantom Link was walking backwards through the doorway! Link followed, until they arrived back on the rocks. He heard a noise that sounded like, "elbarenluv seeh!" and noticed that phantom Link was swinging at Regund's neck. But something different was happening! A hand, coming out of a dark portal in midair, pushing Link's arm further than intended by the one whose arm was being pushed! The sword cut into the neck, deeper, deeper, and then Link found himself holding the sword that was being forced to kill the man! "I must have been put back into time," Link thought, but then noticed Regund's eyes. As life departed from them, a look of confusion and doubt appeared on his face. Link gasped. He'd just killed an admirable man, and sent an army into chaos, because of their commander's death, and he hadn't any idea how!

As time settled into its regular flow, he heard the crowd around the boulder gasp. He stood still, not moving a muscle. He waited for the crowd's reaction to the murder he hadn't committed.

A rock hit his face, and he flinched in pain. Another hit his arm, knocking his sword from his hand. He moved fluidly now, reacting calmly to his instincts. He was surrounded by enemies he didn't want to kill, so he had to flee. He reached down, ignoring most of the rocks pelting his form now, and picked up his sword, then ran. He sprinted to the forest, many still chasing him and pelting him with whatever was in their hands, and tried to ignore the jeers that stung his ego.

He could never explain that he hadn't killed Regund to the townsfolk, so he'd escaped, losing his pursuers in the forest, then sat on a stump to wonder at what had happened. This was the work of some evil Mage, surely, who had a grudge against the commander. There couldn't be a mage after him; he'd killed anything after his blood. Anything except for... He shivered, hoping that Ganondorf hadn't broken the seal. No, this was the work of some other being. Ganondorf never had others do his dirty work, especially not Link.

Link looked up, hearing thunder. He found a tree to sleep under, and settled down to think about what had happened in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter two is here! It took a while, but I finally got it. My iPod is taken, but I should get it back today, and I'll be able to write more frequently._

* * *

Chapter 2: Thorgann

Having accomplished his goal, the Mage pulled his hand from the Depths of Darkness, and returned time to its normal speed. He walked to the plush chair next to his bed, and called a servant. The servant, trained in the art of teleportation, instantly appeared next to the Mage.

"Yes, my lord?" asked the demon servant.

"Fetch me some of the Elvin wine from the cabinet downstairs," said the Mage.

"Yes, my lord." the servant disappeared.

The Mage plotted a novel as he waited. He was a studious sort, always to be seen with a black-bound spell book that matched the dark robes he was never seen out of. Always with the hood on, one could never see his eyes, but for a small glitter off the glistening spheres. He was a genius in the art of strategy, and his one love was his Art. He was Thorgann, master of Black Magic, and of Tower Draagard.

His one enemy was the commander of the Army of Fistlandus, and he had just finished THAT enemy off. Many years before, the commander had discovered Thorgann, a then innocent boy, practicing sleight of hand techniques. The commander, a young adult, had shouted for all to hear that Thorgann was most certainly a witch, and must be burned. Thorgann had fled, running away from the townspeople chasing him, swearing revenge under his breath. Now, the debt was repaid. The commander had wanted Thorgann dead, and Thorgann had killed the commander.

Now Thorgann just had to worry about one thing: the young kid that he had forced to kill the commander. He was different, Thorgann knew, blessed by the goddesses. He was a hero in his own land, and excelled the commander in swordsmanship in this one. He was going to be a pain, but Thorgann could handle him. After all, what good could a ten-year-old boy do?

The demon returned, along with the wine, ink, and pen. He knew that Thorgann, ever the scholar, had plotted another novel. Thorgann, sipping some wine, dipped the pen in the ink and began to write, "In a land called Grantis, a glorious wizard was assigned a task by the gods: defeat the man that held Castle Grantis in thrall...."

_This is my enemy! Tell me what you think of him!_


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: In this chapter, I use a little thing a copied/stole from another fanfiction author named brown phantom. It's known as hammerspace, a sort of inter-dimensional storage unit, and explains why Link can pull things out of midair. Basically, anything Link doesn't want to carry on his person (sword, sheath, shield, etc.) is in hammerspace, but he can access it at anytime (by pressing start, moving to the item he wants, and pressing the c button in the direction he wants it to be ;P )._

* * *

Chapter 3: A New Friend

Link woke up, rubbing his head. He'd fallen asleep wrong or something, because his head hurt really badly. He looked to his right, and seeing a fairy about to whack his head again, he thought, 'Startle it!' He yelled, "Hey!!!" really loudly, which scared the fairy out of hitting him.

"Augh!!!" yelled the fairy, and it suddenly took off. Link stood still, stunned by the oddity yet familiarity of having a fairy wake him by hitting him (Tat had fallen into a really annoying habit of doing that!), then, realizing the fairy might be of some use to him, him not knowing his way around the land, he began to chase after it. (A/N: Wow! How long a sentence can I write?)

He lept over tree stumps and creeks made by the rain, and ducked under tree branches and swarms of gnats. He made sure to always keep the fairy in sight, and never let it get too far ahead of him. Eventually, he got out a bottle from hammerspace and caught the fairy in it.

"Gotcha!" he yelled.

The fairy squirmed inside. It was a strange looking fairy, with blue on the inside, like Navi, and a purple outline, like Tael. It said, with a voice like Tael's, signifying it was male, asked, "What are you going to do with me now you've caught me?

Link responded, "I don't want to do anything to you, umm...."

"Yanl."

"I don't want to do anything to you, Yanl." Link finished. He let the fairy out as a sign of good will. "Just please tell me why you were hitting my head," Link said.

"I thought you might have been dead! If you woke up, I wouldn't have to be worried," Yanl responded.

Link sighed. It was a good answer. He said, "Well, I'm alive."

"Yeah, thank the goddesses," Yanl said, slightly sarcastically.

Link, ignoring this, asked the fairy, "Have you heard of what happened at the town back there?" Link asked nonchalantly.

"Yeah, the commander of their army got murdered by some jerk lowlife!" Yanl said happily. Obviously he had a love for gossip.

Link winced at the comment. He hadn't intended to kill Regund, and he was being called a lowlife for it. "You know, what of it was some person trying to get revenge on the commander? One who hadn't been seen in forever, and no one recognized anymore," Link asked, feigning thoughtfulness.

"I can only think of one guy like that, and he's a wizard! He wouldn't fiddle around with swords," Yanl said.

Link started. 'I was right!' Link asked Yanl, "You know what? That wizard might know something about this! Do you know where he lives?"

"Who doesn't?" Yanl said, continuing, "I heard from someone I was flying around that the wizard, Thorgann is his name, lives in Tower Draagard in the dead lands north of the city. All the dark magic flowing from underneath the tower corrupts the land surrounding it."

Link sat down, sighing. He asked, "Do you think you could take me there? I have no maps, no knowledge, nothing of the layout of the land. Do you think you could take me there? I mean, we'd get to see a LOT of crazy stuff you could tell everybody about!" He emphasized the word everybody.

Yanl thought about it. "I could tell everybody..." he muttered, then, seeming to make up his mind, he said, "Alright. I'll go with you. If there isn't anything super crazy to tell anyone, I'll leave, alright?"

Link hid a smile. He'd read Yanl like a book. A true gossip, through and through.

"Alright, you can leave if there isn't anything interesting," he said. 'With the way my life is, I'll never have a dull moment!' he thought.

Yanl flew next to Link. 'At any rate,' Link thought, 'I have a new friend.'

* * *

_Tell me what you think! (I doubt anyone is reading this constantly, though)_


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: An Intruder

Thorgann closed the leather-bound notebook. The great, glorious wizard had defeated the dark general in a daring duel, and had been accepted back into Grantis with open arms. "And that is how it should be," Thorgann thought, handing the book to his servant. "Except for two things. I am not being celebrated for killing Regund, for they don't even know I killed him, and I and even want to go back in the first place."

He had everything he could possibly want, and didn't have a care in the world. Except...

A deathly wail echoed through his chambers. He started, for that sound had not been heard in the Tower for years. It signaled an intruder entering the land surrounding his tower. It was beautiful land, and he didn't want anyone messing it up, and so he set up an alarm. He had dealt with all trespassers in several different ways (his servant had been one if the trespassers), killing some, torturing others, and letting none return to their land.

He walked to his mirror and spoke the words that opened the glass to the Dark Depths, his own personal wormhole. While he did this, he thought of an extra special treatment for this trespasser, who was brazen enough to wander in his land without heeding what the townspeople surely warned him of. As the Dark Depths opened into a portal, Thorgann gasped. It was the young kid, walking through the gray dust of years of decay, his facial expression and body language telling Thorgann that this kid had a purpose.

Thorgann leaned back and pondered. He hadn't expected this kid to recover from killing a friend so quickly. Apparently, this kid was made of tougher stuff than Thorgann had predicted. Thorgann snorted, annoyed. That was obvious, because the kid had defeated Regund.

Thorgann forgot all previous thoughts of punishment for this intruder, and decided to welcome him with open arms, perhaps, even, do it in person...


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Strangest Homecoming

Link trudged through the thick, grey ash that he supposed had once been beautiful trees. He could finally see an outline of a tower in the distance, and was eager to arrive. He had almost started regretting taking Yanl, who chatted away about the state of Old Derrick's clothes, or about a secret romance between Julian and Orlick he'd heard of from Sely, who was Yanl's fairy friend that seemed to know how to be as inconspicuous as a fly on the wall, listening to every little detail in everyone's lives, and relating them to Yanl. However, he had barely walked five hundred yards into the deadlands when some sort of mole creature Link had never seen before grabbed his leg and started burrowing, taking Link with it.

Yanl had promptly said, "Link! This is a Mollette! Stab its snout!" Link did as told, and the Mollette quickly turned into a dirt clod that link pulled his foot out of.

Link had asked, "How did you know how to kill that thing?"

"I've heard somewhere that the guard of Fistlandus does that to kill them if they fall into Mollette traps," Yanl had replied, and Link admitted that Yanl's gossiping was a little useful.

However, now, Link was prepared to take his Gilded Sword that he had kept from Termina and pin Yanl to one of the many dead trees surrounding the area. He turned to Yanl, who was happily tittering away about whether Khaman wore yellow or blue briefs, and swiped at him with his sword.

"Ack!" Yanl screamed in terror," What was that for?"

"With all you're talking, we're going to alert this Thorgann and all his guards to our whereabouts! You need to keep silent!" Link growled. Yanl backed away, his light fading a little, small drops of water falling from where Link assumed (or rather hoped) his face was. Link reached to Yanl, the fairy's warmth surprising him a little. He jumped when mini teeth grabbed his finger, and shook Yanl off.

"Ouch!" Link yelped. "Why did you bite me?"

"Consider us even for you trying to decapitate me," Yanl snidely replied.

Through all the bickering, Link and Yanl failed to notice a strange mist had filled the area. Trees slowly vanished from sight, and a rumble filled the air.

Link and Yanl suddenly stopped talking, and Yanl, shivering in fright, forgot their argument and flew into Link's hat. Link looked up, down, left, and right. Nothing. He turned around, and gasped. Behind them, where nothing had been before, was a great tower built of black stone, with many dark openings for windows, and two gargoyles blocking an entrance, mouths open in a silent howl, as if praising their creator's existence.

Link took a step back then another, and tripped on a clump of dust, falling backwards. He fell through the air, arms pin wheeling, and landed in strong arms. Link turned around to see who had caught him, and was now holding him tight. It was...

"Darunia?" Link exclaimed. He looked around. He was no longer in the deadlands that surrounded Tower Draagard, but the Kokiri Forest, and in front of him was not a dark tower at all, but rather his old house in the tree he had used to live in. He turned to his left. There was Saria, playing a cream-colored fairy ocarina, Malon singing along with it. To his right, his horse Epona, whom he had left in Hyrule so she could be taken care of by her old owner. Beside Epona were two brothers, giddily laughing their heads off and slapping their knees. Darunia set Link down, and he took a better look around. There was Anju, hugging a pocket Cuccoo, and Biggoron, eating bombs and blowing smoke from his huge nostrils, to the delight of several Kokiri. Talon and Ingo, Drunkenly swaying to the music coming from Don Gero's concert.

Link smiled, his eyes brimming with tears of joy at seeing all his friends again, his mind mysteriously forgetting all that had happened in Fistlandus, but there was a strange nagging in the back of his mind. Something wasn't right... But then, out of his hat flew...

"Navi! I've been searching everywhere for you!" Link yelled happily.

Then Navi hit him in the head and said, "Navi? Who's Navi? Why are you just standing there?"

Link, confused, looked at Navi, then, doing a double take, noticed that it suddenly WASN'T Navi, but Yanl. His house wasn't his house, but the tower. Saria and Epona weren't each other, but stone gargoyles. The others weren't the people he remembered from Hyrule, but they were monsters Link didn't recognize. And Darunia... Link turned. Darunia was a large, black robed man, with a hood over his head, shadow covering half his face, and the other half an evil sneer.

Link stepped back instinctively, then composed himself. Was this the Mage?

The man spoke, "You see me. This proves to be interesting."

Link narrowed his eyes and pulled out his sword. He ran toward the man and swung his sword, but before the blade touched the man he disappeared. Link spun around, looking for the man, who was obviously the Mage.

The Mage appeared to his right, and said, "Welcome to Tower Draagard. I am the master of the tower, and if you need anything, you should come to the top of the tower and talk to me." He looked at the monsters and smirked. "These are my servants, and they shall try to -take care of you- as best they can." He emphasized the words "take care of you." He continued, "I try to make my tower seem familiar to my guests, so there is no need to feel out of place." He sneered. "Enjoy your visit," he said, and teleported away.

"Damn it!" Link said, then started for the tower door. He paused, then noticed all the monsters had disappeared as well. "I'm guessing the monsters are in the tower," he said.

Yanl agreed, saying, "Are you going to go in?"

Link rubbed the ash away from a spot until he saw the brown of dirt, sat down there, and said, "Might as well rest and eat before we go in; who knows when we might next get a chance to do that?" He pulled out a hunk of bread, ripped off a piece and put it in his mouth, pondering as he chewed.


End file.
